


Why Talk About Love

by newredshoes



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Peggy Carter, Casual Sex Is Not So Casual, During Canon, F/M, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Porn with Feelings, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:24:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7359328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy is done waiting, but there's a reason Bucky says yes. <i>Why should we always waste time, when a kiss is so sublime?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Talk About Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title from an Andrews Sisters song, which [does and doesn't at all](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPP1zkg4yO4) match the tone of the story. ([lyrics](https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/the-andrews-sisters/why-talk-about-love-43))

Some Octobers in London were glorious, autumn crowned with gold and all that. This October, however, was dreadful: one dull stretch of days that never quite got warm enough or dry enough. When Peggy wasn't out on missions herself, of course she was below ground at SSR HQ. But it was a damned annoyance to come up for air only to find the outside world so unendingly gloomy.

It should have been easier to bear. The summer had been a blaze of action: Normandy, Rome, Paris, all liberated. Steve and the Commandos had flattened Hydra outposts from Poland to Portugal. Then Hitler dug in his heels: Holland, the Rhineland, the bloody missteps that wasted men and threw Steve into too many fights to win. But he never said no when lives were at stake, even if he neglected his main mission. Peggy loved that about him, and she hated him for it. When it worked, he was everything she'd seen in him back at Camp LeHigh. When it didn't, he blamed himself, and refused to accept the failure for what it was — out of his hands.

His outsized guilt and grief and his silence about both were suffocating. Peggy tried to soothe him, to reassure him, but one refusal of help too many and suddenly she was done. She was furious at him, more even than during last year's embarrassing snit about Pvt. Lorraine. The day Peggy parted ways with Steve, cold and abrupt, he finally seemed to understand that he had crossed a line, even if he didn't understand how. She was gone before he could follow her. Some wise companion must have kept him back, because she didn't see him again for the next four days.

Peggy had only recently come to understand what she'd been missing by being upright and acceptable for so long. She envied the ease with which Lorraine wielded herself, which Lorraine had noticed sometime in the spring. That was when she'd turned her charms on Peggy, and Peggy saw the thing through in a way she'd never planned nor known she would crave. But even then, she kept herself waiting — because though they were both soldiers, though they had agreed to a life which could end at any moment, she wanted it to be the right time with Steve. Because of course Steve was the one. She'd known that for longer than he did. She didn't want to ruin that.

But who'd told her what "ruined" meant? If she was bolder about her own feelings and self-interest, she'd march into his quarters, yell at him and then shut him up with kissing. When she thought about him in bed, with her thighs spread wide and shaking, it wasn't planned, it wasn't staged, it was just unvarnished, with nothing between them anymore. However, now she was dark-eyed and furious, and she felt no need to wait around.

All of the Commandos were back at home base, a mandatory R&R while Jones and Falsworth recovered from blast injuries that didn't manifest until two days after they'd been incurred. Phillips, independent of Peggy's anger, had loaned Steve out to Eisenhower and Supreme Allied Command. Dugan and Morita retreated to the local, while Dernier pestered Howard until the two of them were screaming at each other, language barrier be damned. She'd made her choice from among the regulars at HQ. Only one of Steve's men had been bold with her already.

Peggy thought two things about Bucky Barnes: that he was too slick, and that he was too quiet. He'd never lost that hollow-cheeked look from the first time she met him, but when she watched him with the other men, he was one of them, he was the skirt-chasing smooth talker Steve had always joked about. His actions in mission reports were another story: entirely impressive, and nearly impossible. Somehow at the end of every fight, he was the only one who could keep up with Steve. Peggy studied him one late evening from behind a desk: the planes of his face cast Art Deco shadows as he broke down and reassembled an experimental rifle. He'd been caught in that blast too, but no medical team could find a thing wrong with him.

She bit her lower lip as she considered the shape of him.

Her lipstick was fresh; she could still smell its rose perfume faintly on her mouth. She thought of where Lorraine had lingered, what she'd wanted every time Peggy had gone back, and so when she strode across the floor, she held her chin just so, straightened her back, let her hips sway, let herself notice what she felt between her legs. "Sgt. Barnes," she said crisply, and as he looked up, she was pleased that he saw her the way she wanted. "It seems you're our last man standing for the moment."

Barnes glanced at the next room over, where Howard was bellowing something about containment radii and Dernier was shouting back about casings. "Ma'am," he said, with a straight face that mocked the word. "Something I can help you with?"

"As a matter of fact, there is." She glanced down at the rifle parts. "Finish up with that and come with me. Bring a jacket — standard GI, not yours."

One corner of his mouth curled. "Spy stuff, huh? They don't let me do that much."

"If it turns out you have an affinity for it, we may let you do it more." Peggy strolled back to her desk, amazed at how easy that was. As she collected her things — purse, umbrella, coat — she followed his movements in her peripheral vision. The gun was new to Barnes, but he snapped it back into place with a fluid confidence. After he pointed out a flaw in the sight to one of Howard's taller techs, he lifted the squinting assistant's jacket off the back of his chair and made his way toward an exit he and Peggy could both see.

At that moment, Peggy's insides began to churn. It wasn't entirely a lie or a ruse yet. As she slipped toward the door and up the stairs to the street, she grasped at four or five different tasks she could conceivably set them to. But then there was Barnes waiting for her under the stone eave, his hands in his pockets. The jacket he'd stolen was a bit too small, but it still created a strong line over his shoulders. The rain pattered gently on the bricks around them. The cold bit at her skin.

She opened her umbrella. "Put your arm around me," she said. "We're just walking out to dinner."

"My real date later tonight better not spot us," he drawled. A beat too late, he slung his arm around her shoulders, carefully, and she held the umbrella low overhead. He ran hot, like Steve did: she could feel him through all their respective layers as she navigated the warren of medieval streets. His hold on her remained tentative, though he didn't break character.

"I hope you haven't been too bored these last few days," she said, keeping her step quick.

He bowed his head, but his smile was quick and bright as a flare. "Bored can be okay," he said. "The hot showers are worth it."

"You're very easily tempted back to civilization," she joked.

His half-grin turned lazy. "I wasn't built to spend my life camping. That's boring."

"No dance halls in the wilderness either," Peggy remarked lightly. She was still second-guessing herself, but she straightened her shoulders. Her skin felt flush and sensitive already, simply from possibility. Her lips seemed fuller, riper. She wanted this, and she could have this. That was reason enough.

Barnes looked at her sidelong. "What kind of mission is this?"

"It's not a mission," she said, and kept her eyes straight ahead.

There was no disguising the hitch of anxiety in his voice. "Then what—"

"Headquarters is close. I set it up that way." She could feel her nerve losing its footing. She even questioned how angry she really was. But Barnes was beside her, and warm, and really quite beautiful, and especially since they were soldiers, shouldn't she grab her own life with both fists? Peggy reached into her pocket and pulled out a set of keys.

Barnes frowned at her hand. "What are those?" He didn't slow down. 

"My housekeys. I have a flat just around the corner." She halted and faced him, holding the umbrella between them. "I live on the fourth floor," she said, and met his eyes.

For a moment, she was certain that she'd absolutely blown it. This sort of thing wasn't her forte, not beyond meaningless flirting she knew wouldn't go anywhere, and she was well aware what Barnes and Steve meant to each other. Surely it was cruel to ask. Except.

Except she could spot swallowing your desire for the sake of others a mile away. This time, she'd been watching him. All year, she'd taken his teasing as camaraderie and his interest as professional, once she'd made it clear where her admiration lay, but Barnes wasn't used to coming in second, even for his dearest friend's sake. This too made her proposal a cruelty, if he'd made his peace with it.

Barnes was knitting his brow, but he still stood close to her. "Carter, I… listen—"

"Do you want to come upstairs?" she said, more fiercely than she'd planned. She didn't touch him; she wasn't going to trick him any more than she already had.

Something was warring in him, behind his hangdog expression. "You're a great girl, Carter, and that's an understatement." He shifted his weight. "I don't want to get in the middle of anything."

She drew in a breath. "There's nothing to come between. There's just me. And I don't want anything romantic." Barnes looked her over, eyebrows raised. She could find no signal in the silence. Then, abruptly, he chuckled. Peggy frowned. "What?"

In that moment, she was certain he would condescend to her, that he would gently tell her she'd regret it once she came to her senses, and that she and Steve would sort themselves out like they should soon enough. But he didn't. Barnes scooped her close with both arms and kissed her. Her surrounded her, from his hands curled into the small of her back to the hungry way he used his tongue and teeth. Peggy nearly dropped the umbrella.

They only broke apart at a curse from a passerby for blocking the sidewalk. Peggy laughed and slipped a finger through the loop in her key ring. Her whole body bloomed every time they brushed against each other, though only their shoulders touched the rest of the way. It was real; she was doing this. She led him into the spare vestibule, up the dim Victorian stairwell and, after some fiddling and a good thump from her shoulder, over the threshold and into the single small room she rented, for the few hours in any given week she wasn't at war.

Barnes shrugged off the too-small jacket, his wonder that Peggy existed outside the SSR plain on his face. She set down her keys and draped her coat over the back of the rickety chair in front of her writing desk-cum-dinner table. Her bed sat tucked into one corner, a kitchenette in the other, with a small dresser doubling as a vanity against the wall. Barnes nodded. "Is that where that dress lives?"

She crooked an eyebrow. "And what dress would that be?"

"Come on," he said, his voice husky now. He leaned close and ran his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck. "There's only one dress I could mean." Peggy shivered.

"You'll have to work your way up to that," she said, as his other hand snaked over his waist and down the curve of her arse. She pulled herself closer, so she could feel him beneath her, but it wasn't enough, even as he tended to the soft parts of her neck, just beneath her jaw. His back thumped against the wall as she shoved him; he let out a low, pleased grunt at the roughness. Peggy leaned in to straddle his thigh as she kissed him, harder now. Her breasts were straining against her blouse and undergarments, which were presently more of a bother than a vanity.

Barnes was lean and muscular beneath her, and quick to arouse. When her nails scraped his skin as she bunched his shirt at his back, his breathing hitched a little, and with that, Peggy was sure she had him. But she wasn't watching his hands, and when his fingers rolled slowly against her sex, her own gasp took her by surprise. Barnes grinned. "You don't need that much help, do you," he murmured. When he drew back his hand, she was ready to protest, but he laid two fingers against her lips, his calluses grazing her lipstick.

She smiled first. She met his eyes and took both fingers into her mouth, running her tongue over the pads and tips and along the whole length of them. He was kissing her again when he pushed aside her knickers and slid his fingers along the wetness between her folds. Peggy swore against his lips as he curled inside her. This she knew, but to have help — she moaned low in her throat as he teased her out. Barnes was hard and heated too, his erection brushing against her knee through his trousers. Her skirt was already hiked up around her waist: she let go of his shoulder and began rubbing herself, her fingers moving in circles while he rocked up, deeper and closer.

The animal noise coming out of her only tipped her closer to the edge. "God, you like that, don't you," Barnes growled. "You don't think that's all, Carter — I know you want more than that."

"Are you just going to talk about it?" She grabbed at his hair, near the crown of his head. Almost too quick to react, he gripped her hips and flipped her. Peggy yanked at his hair as she thudded against the wall.

"No," Barnes said, pulling her knickers down along the length of her legs. "I'm gonna make you come apart."

The moment his tongue pressed against her cunt, Peggy slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from shouting. Barnes had a sniper's patience, and he took an indecent amount of pleasure in the act, sucking and humming and using his fingers and egging her on. How he kept Peggy on the knife's edge for so long, she couldn't fathom. She raked his scalp with her nails, her whole self blazing. Her feet arched and curled against the stiff footbed of her heels. The climax she'd been begging for caught her totally off-guard. It ravaged and flooded her, and when she came back to herself, she was laughing.

Barnes hovered beneath her, his lips indecently bee-stung. "You're very proud of yourself, aren't you," she gasped, and pulled him by the collar for a kiss. The taste and smell of herself all over him was hypnotic, exactly what she loved about stolen hours with Lorraine.

"No shame in a job well done," he replied, with that cat-caught-the-canary grin, which she reached for again; she couldn't stop kissing him. He eased her up onto her feet. "Bed's that way, right?"

"Don't get lost," she said, amused.

They each shed their shoes, keeping up eye contact like it was a game. But when Barnes reached for the top button of his shirt, Peggy reached for his wrist. "Don't you dare."

Partway into unbuttoning his shirt, she toppled them backward. Her mattress creaked and hardly gave, but she was straddling Barnes' waist, discovering his collarbones and chest and the clean, distinctive scent of him up close. His fingers dug into the undersides of her thighs, over the base of her spine. "Sit up," he said, and propped himself on one elbow.

Peggy licked her lips and leaned back, taking care to settle on her own knees rather than his hips. Barnes tugged her blouse up from her waistband, but he started with the bottom buttons, his brow furrowed with concentration. Peggy smirked and reached for her collar. "Would you like some help?"

"I'm doing this," he snapped cordially. "I've been dreaming about this for a year. You're not going to ruin it for me."

His knuckles brushed against her belly as he worked. Her lips curled. "A year?"

Barnes didn't look away. "I've got eyes, Carter. You know what you do to a guy."

Peggy fluttered her eyelashes. "Why, Sgt. Barnes."

"Oh no," he said, and paused, just below her breasts.

She smiled. "What?"

He slipped one hand beneath her shirt, stroking slow circles over her stomach with his thumbs. "If you keep calling me Sgt. Barnes now, I'll never be able to hear it any other way."

Just as slowly and deliberately, she planted her hands on his shoulders. "James?" His mouth twisted — _Are you kidding me?_ Peggy leaned closer, so their lips were almost touching. "Bucky."

At that, he untucked the final stretch of buttons and folded back the front of her blouse, down over her shoulders until she wore it like a shawl. He pulled himself upright, his chest pressing against hers. "You know you're goddamn magnificent, right?"

Peggy slid out of the blouse, one arm at a time. "I do," she said, her eyes on his lips.

"Someone's gotta tell you that," he muttered. "You can't just think it, you gotta say it."

At that, she couldn't help herself. "Do as I say, not as I do?" With slow, teasing deliberation, she pulled the waist of his trousers away from his belly.

Bucky sighed, half exasperated, but partly at her fingers seeking out the raised muscle at his hip. "You know this is different."

"Yes," she admitted, tracing the fine black hairs that ran up to his navel. "But you've done this before, haven't you. Gone after someone he fancied."

She was guessing, but it wasn't much of a guess. Steve had played it like Bucky was just as surprised as he was, that the girl they both liked would get friendly with just one of them and furthermore, that the outcome was both obvious and inevitable. But Peggy knew how this worked among women, and in fact, something behind Bucky's eyes flickered. It wasn't all that sorry. "He didn't use to look like that," he said, and tossed aside his shirt. "There wasn't any chance it'd be a problem."

Peggy reached lower, and there it was, the base of his cock, which she hadn't even seen yet. "So it was all right because it was never going to happen?"

He went very still, there in his vest and his dog tags, and narrowed his eyes. "You got an angle in all this?"

"Yes." She ran her palm beneath the length of him. "I just like hearing that you want me."

Bucky leaned into her hand, into her shoulder, as he unhooked her brassiere. "I didn't take you for this mean," he said close against her ear.

"Hmm." Peggy let the garment fall away. "I never took you for all that pure." She drank in his wide eyes with a gloating pleasure as he finally saw her breasts. His nails dug just hard enough into the small of her back.

"Look who's talking." He reached down his trousers and covered her hand with his own. "You know what you're doing? Or do you want some help?"

Her first instinct was offense, but then there was his thumb stroking her wrist. He sucked in a breath when she grasped him. "They're not mutually exclusive," she said, with a smile.

Bucky's eyebrows went up as she withdrew her hand. "I don't know why I'm so surprised by that."

Peggy tossed the bra aside. "I was engaged before," she said, rising up on her knees. She reached behind to undo her skirt. "I could have been Mrs. Fred Wells. I wasn't sure I loved him enough, but we were already engaged."

Bucky pulled her close. He began kissing up the insides of her breasts, even the heat of his cheek against her skin an exquisite trespass. "His loss," he mumbled. Peggy gasped; his tongue swiped over her nipple again, followed by the judicious addition of his teeth. Her spine went liquid for a moment — she sank against this precision-strike sensation before arching into it. She ran her palm over her other breast and squeezed it.

"His loss," she sighed.

Bucky shepherded her, lower and lower until she lay spread beneath him. He only paused his attentions to yank off his vest. The dog tags skimmed over the bottom of her ribcage, and even those were warm, they were sparks tripping over her skin. It was Peggy who got to his trouser buttons first: she peeled the whole set off him, rolling him onto his back now. Bucky was so unlike anyone she'd slept with or dreamed of before. He was dark all over, olive-skinned and sleekly compact. He was circumcised too, she noted with some interest; she'd felt it, but never seen it herself.

He wagged his eyebrows. "Still need a map, Carter?"

She set both hands on his thighs and relished the hardness of them. "You forget, I'm an accomplished scout." His cock was already well along. She crouched lower and brought her lips close to the tip; it twitched under her hand, under no one's control but hers. "I think we both want the same thing."

He laughed, a quick, breathy huff. "In so many ways." His chest was already rising and falling a bit faster. "When you met us — last fall — Jesus, all that, and I could have led you into a tent and." Peggy thought of him that day, bloody and filthy and alive, miraculously alive, a survivor. A low noise of approval rumbled in the back of her throat; she closed her eyes, holding the image close, and ran the tip of her tongue slowly up the side of him.

"Oh god," he muttered, and laughed again, disbelieving. "You wore that goddamn red dress — you walked right up and I would have—" His face contorted as Peggy reveled in it; she took the whole head of his cock in her mouth, she surrounded him with her tongue and lips, she sucked and swallowed more and more of him. The way he filled her mouth, even more than knowing he was unspooling beneath her, went straight to her cunt. She could feel it swelling and soaking itself as she moaned, as he tugged the pinned shapes out of her hair. Peggy reached for herself with her free hand.

She only half-heard the rest of his commentary — some of it was that ladies' man Bucky Barnes got tongue-tied during sex acts, but some of it was her own heart pounding in her ears. Peggy had parachuted into ack-ack fire, passed herself off among Nazi scientists, engineered escapes from deep behind enemy lines and sufficiently comported herself to impress a man as generally unimpressed as Chester Phillips. Yet none of that resembled the vulnerability of finding out what you like while so intimately in charge of another person's pleasure. Poor Fred — as unadventurous in bed as in life. She might have married a man who'd think this indecorous.

Instead, she'd whipped herself into quite a state, from the work of her own fingers to the game of how much of Bucky's cock she could take in. Dimly, she came to realize he was speaking her name between breaths. "Peggy — Peg — Carter, I'm close, do you—" His eyes rolled back. "Oh fuck—"

Only by some miracle did she have the presence of mind not to back off. She wasn't prepared for the explosion of salty warmth on her tongue; some she swallowed simply by reflex, but the rest she tried gracelessly to shunt away from her throat. Bucky had a hazy look to him, his muscles still shuddering, but his fingers stayed tangled in Peggy's hair, and he took in her bewildered expression with a wry bemusement.

"I'm good," he said, extricating himself. "I won't be offended."

Peggy sprang to her feet and padded quickly into the small washroom around the corner. It wasn't very much, once she spat it out. She swished with water straight from the tap, twice for good measure. Still, as she looked herself over, naked and disheveled in her little mirror, she couldn't help but feel pleased with herself.

Bucky hadn't moved, save to let his limbs go loose around him. One corner of his mouth curled when he spotted her; he spread one arm beside him. Peggy let her hips swing on the approach. She lay down close, tucked against his shoulder.

"That was a bit of a mess," she said, charging right into her own discomfort.

He snorted softly. "You did pretty okay."

She grinned. "Beginner's luck?"

He pulled her close and kissed her, long and languorous. Peggy rolled half on top of him, their legs intertwined. Now that it was quiet, she could hear the rain hissing outside. Barnes was so warm, it made her greedy. The full contact of their skin and the patient way they enjoyed each other now was a black-market luxury.

Sooner than she expected, she felt it: the early hardness of another erection, against the joint of her hip. "Oh!" she said, against his lips, without meaning to. 

"Yeah," said Bucky, and they both started to laugh. He took her in for another kiss, which continued as he rolled her onto her back.

Peggy ran her palms over his chest. "Another round, then?"

He began brushing her hair out of her face, lock by lock. "It's not boxing," he said, still smiling. She thought of his smile as such a rare thing, and suddenly, here it wasn't. She couldn't help responding in kind.

"Well. I'm having fun."

"Good." Bucky lowered himself halfway and held himself there as they kissed again. Almost of their own volition, Peggy's knees began to spread; she could feel herself opening up too. Bucky could probably smell it on her. As she thumbed her own tightening nipple, he met her eyes. "What do you want?" His voice had gone low and honeyed, dangerous in the way one dares one's equals.

Peggy bit her lip. It was remarkable, how little she'd let herself notice through a year with such singular focus. Bucky's own hair stuck up at angles — it was so thick, and there was so much of it. Coming in, she hadn't turned off the lights, so her one fickle bulb threw shadows over half his angular face. It painted dark lines over his musculature too: a well-put-together man, a man who'd seen and done as much as she had, not all of it pretty.

"I want you in me," she said, deciding. "I want all of you."

"God, I'm so glad you said that." He reached past her; she twisted to watch as he grasped around for his trousers, which she'd deposited where the pillow usually lay, and fished through several of the pockets. "Hang on," he said, as her face slipped from curious to incredulous. Then Bucky grinned. "There we go." He held up the rubber between two fingers. "Do you want to do the honors or should I?"

Peggy plucked the packet away and sat back on her heels. "Sit up." She crawled behind him as he did, then leaned her chin on his shoulder. "Bucky," she said, snaking one hand over his chest. "Can I watch you?"

He held out his hand for the rubber, but she only turned to nip his ear. He bowed his head and chuckled, low in his throat; she could feel it all through his rib cage. Peggy rose and fell against his back as he breathed in and out. With a certain sardonic showmanship, he began to stroke himself.

Her fingertips idled over his nipple before she dragged her nails lightly across his chest, her eyes on his lap. "I'm not distracting you, am I?"

Bucky closed his eyes, that lazy smile taunting her back. "Sweetheart, this is the easiest thing in the world." 

"Mm." She pressed her fingers to his jaw to turn his face. When he opened his mouth to kiss back, she took his lip lightly between her teeth and held it there. In the same moment, she gently pried open his fist. Peggy let go only as she pinched the paper packet open and deposited the rubber onto his waiting palm.

"You're a menace," Bucky murmured.

She grinned against his lips. "Good thing you get to fuck me."

"You're damn right."

Peggy had thought she'd cooled down a little, but her body was eager as a hound, once called. One thing was for sure: Bucky had had plenty of practice. He coaxed and teased her until there wasn't an inch of her that didn't want his attention. If she had been mean earlier, he was downright cruel. "What do you want?" he'd murmur, against her neck, above her navel, at her shoulder blade. And Peggy moaned and swore and arched against him and named him, and each time she learned she hadn't found the bottom to her wants.

"All right," he said suddenly, as he held himself over her with one hand, and there was the tip of his cock pressing against her. Her eyes shot open.

"Oh fuck," she gasped. "Bucky, more, give me more than that, oh god."

There it was, all this hunger and capacity in her, and she was cradling him, all of him, and that new fullness lit up brand-new paths in her, all over. This was no "lie back and think of England." Bucky began to move within her. Peggy gripped the sheets. "You're so warm," she whispered. "Bucky, you're so…"

"I got you," he said, thick and urgent all at once. "Listen to me, I've got you."

She took a deep, shuddering breath and locked eyes with him. "More."

Without a word, without looking away, he pressed into her, deeper, harder. Peggy felt herself in ways she'd never anticipated, rocket fire and phosphor and siege engines. She utterly lost track of her words: there was only heat and flesh and force and escalation.

(She didn't mean to think of it then. That moment, right before the generator blew and sparks cut through the blackout and the whole lab went silent. That moment with Howard at the controls, with her gripping the balcony rail, with white light erasing everything in the room, even the sound of Steve screaming. That moment after, where they all fell back into themselves, wondering what they'd just done. That moment the chamber drew back its panels and showed them.)

Peggy opened her eyes. The sheets beneath her were soaked, with sweat, with both of them. Bucky was still there, breathing long and deep above her. Her throat was rough, and her ears rang. Something in her felt barely lashed together still; when she tried to move, another climax tripped through her, softer this time. Neither of them spoke.

With care, Bucky drew back and out of her. A final too-huge breath gushed out of her lungs. She watched him pull off the rubber and sit up; there was something worried in his face. Peggy tapped his wrist. When he glanced back at her, she beckoned him close. Their kisses were slower this time; somehow both of them knew something had shifted, something bittersweet.

Now it was her turn to hold him close, to lie curled toward him with her hand at the nape of his neck. "That was wonderful," she said softly. "You were wonderful."

Something very young flickered in Bucky's face. "I thought you didn't want anything romantic," he joked, knowing what had just happened and trying to hide it.

"I don't," said Peggy, yet something did lurch into place inside her. She wouldn't be able to identify it for a long time: not love, but a deep, fierce affection, ungainly and unrefined. 

Bucky settled against her, his lips just at the peak of her shoulder. He went quiet again while she stroked his hair. Then: "You still mad at him?"

"What?" Something at the core of her flinched. She prepared to deny it up and down, but Bucky lay watching her, clear-eyed. Peggy exhaled slowly. "This was about me, not him," she said.

Somehow he shrugged using only a twitch of his eyebrows. "Sure."

"I wanted you and you wanted me, simple as that." Her stomach twisted. "Shall we lie here and plan how we're going to hide it?"

"Hiding isn't that hard." Bucky's expression had turned too far inward. He rolled away from her and onto his other side.

Peggy sat up, frowning. "I don't always have to make the right decisions," she announced at his silence. "It's bloody exhausting."

"You can get off your soapbox."

"What—"

He twisted where he lay. "You think I want to be here?" he said quietly. Peggy stopped. There was something too ferocious and hurt in him for such a simple statement. She remembered their first meeting, the prison break he never discussed, his bruised eyes and the brown blood crusted at his ear; Steve, shining, broad-shouldered, celebrated at last. Still, Bucky followed. He kept pace. That was a year ago.

They'd both chosen this.

Peggy knew how the rest would go. In the morning, she'd wake up alone, with mussed sheets and the smell of sex all that was left in her flat. At headquarters, Bucky would go back to being Sgt. Barnes. He'd replace the stolen jacket with his own and his face would light up when Steve came back from SHAEF and Phillips would bark at them to prepare for their next mission, since Jones and Falsworth should be discharged before long. Steve would come to her, shyly, and ask how she was, and Peggy — she knew she would smile back. For all the cost of loving him, Steve paid dearly for loving his friends too. He worked so hard and so ceaselessly to deserve it, far past the point when he didn't have to. He feared nothing like taking love for granted. Peggy would smile back. And if she met Barnes' eye then, she knew that he'd nod and simply slip away, where he could feel what he felt out of sight.

The rain still pattered behind her blackout curtains. She stepped off the thin mattress, which creaked beneath them, and crossed the floor to switch off the light. She stood for a moment listening for him, for the sound of his breathing amid the stillness. It took her a minute to pick her way back to the bed. Bucky didn't move until she stretched alongside him and took him in her arms. He turned, almost puzzled, to peer at her.

"You feel things so deeply, and it makes you good, not weak." She kissed his temple once, in the dark. "Someone's got to tell you that."

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is porn, but I'm really excited to share my research! [Look at these gorgeous condoms](http://www.ep.tc/condom-envelopes/), for one. Also, if you ever need to check the weather in London during WWII, [this site](http://www.london-weather.eu/article.85.html) has you covered with month-by-month summaries and data both.
> 
> Infinite thank yous to [walksbyherself](http://archiveofourown.org/users/walksbyherself/works) for her cheerleading, air-punching and beta! More research and fic announcements at [newredfic on Tumblr](http://newredfic.tumblr.com/). Thank you for reading!


End file.
